“Peter Rabbit” powers-that-be hopped into mea culpa mode after a scene within the film involving a severe meals allergy sparked criticism and a web-based boycott.

In a joint assertion with filmmakers, Sony Footage stated that they “sincerely remorse not being extra conscious and delicate to this challenge, and we really apologize,” AP reported.

Within the big-screen adaptation of the Beatrix Potter basic, launched Friday, Peter Rabbit’s neighbor Mr. McGregor is allergic to blackberries. Regardless of, the rabbits hurl the forbidden fruit on the man, who’s pressured to make use of an EpiPen. The film, praised for its animation, has been criticized for turning bunnies into bullies.

Youngsters with Meals Allergy symptoms, a youngsters’s group, posted a “heads-up alert” on Fb for fogeys so they might have an “alternative to debate meals allergy bullying and ‘jokes’ with their baby earlier than seeing the film,” they famous. They added that the submit “instantly went viral.” Twitter customers began utilizing the hashtag #boycottpeterrabbit.

As well as, Kenneth Mendez, the president and CEO of the Bronchial asthma and Allergy Basis of America, wrote an open letter stating that “jokes about meals allergy symptoms can put individuals in peril.”

Many individuals, really.

Researchers estimate that as much as 15 million People have meals allergy symptoms, together with about 6 million youngsters underneath age 18. That’s 1 in 13 youngsters, or roughly two in each classroom, in accordance with the group Meals Allergy Analysis & Schooling.

Mendez urged the brains behind the movie to “look at your portrayal of bullying in your movies geared towards a younger viewers.”

The scene raises troubling echoes of an incident in January wherein three Pennsylvania youngsters had been charged with deliberately exposing a college classmate with a extreme pineapple allergy to the fruit.

“Meals allergy symptoms and are a severe challenge” and the movie “shouldn’t have made gentle” of them “even in a cartoonish, slapstick manner,” the film’s creators stated.